‘#myVUSM’
What does it take to make a change? Med students publish a toolkit to end racialized medicine
Mar. 21, 2021—by Emma Mattson This month five Vanderbilt M2s published an online toolkit sharing how med students led the charge for a VUMC-wide elimination of race-adjustment in a key measure of renal function. The resource, entitled “CAR Toolkit to End Racialized Medicine: eGFR Edition,” breaks their process down into manageable steps so that med students at...
WICP brought telehealth to Shade Tree before the pandemic— and their hard work paid off in unexpected ways
Mar. 8, 2021—by Emma Mattson When med students Austin Triana and Kaustav Shah kickstarted an interdisciplinary consulting program back in 2019, one of their first projects addressed telehealth opportunities at the Shade Tree Clinic. The team had no idea how relevant their project would quickly become. Since its creation in 2019, the Wond’ry Innovation Consulting Program has...
“Med students can’t be sidelined.” Lessons from volunteering during a pandemic.
Mar. 2, 2021—by Emma Mattson This month marks a year since the start of the COVID-19 Volunteer Initiative, a drive that included over 300 student volunteers completing more than 2,350 volunteer hours. We sat down virtually with the med students who started it all: M4 Catie Havemann and G3 Thao Le. They share the lessons they learned...
Chapman mentor Dr. Clair and med students head initiative to change “Dixie Place” to “Vivien Thomas Way”
Feb. 22, 2021—by Emma Mattson This summer Chapman mentor Dr. Walter Clair and a group of med students headed an initiative to change the name of a street on VUMC’s campus from “Dixie Place” to “Vivien Thomas Way.” Per M1 Alex Lupi, who collaborated on the project, the initiative originated in VUSM learning communities in the weeks...
Meet the first matriculated graduate of the VUSM Short Pipeline: M1 Dominique Mosley
Feb. 15, 2021—by Emma Mattson Sometimes a chance conversation can change your path forever— or at least, that’s what happened in M1 Dominique Mosley’s story. Mosley attended Spelman College, a historically Black liberal arts college for women, located in Atlanta, GA. Early on as an undergraduate, Mosley had been interested in both engineering and medicine, but a...
Meet VUSM’s Newest Student Org: Chess Club!
Feb. 2, 2021—by Emma Mattson Med student Colin White-Dzuro learned how to play chess as a kid, but he didn’t start playing in earnest until last year— March, to be exact. As the pandemic narrowed social possibilities across the country, White-Dzuro started looking for safe and socially distanced ways to connect with friends. Chess was the perfect...
VPIL Teamwork in the Time of COVID-19
Jan. 11, 2021—by Emma Mattson Not even a pandemic can stop interdisciplinary learning on VUSM’s campus. Take the Vanderbilt Program in Interprofessional Learning (or VPIL, for short), for example. Each year, around 40 VUSM students join this unique learning community to spend one afternoon a week doing hands-on work in clinics across Nashville, collaborating with students from...
M1 Harrison Thomas takes lead role in the mentoring program that brought him to VUSM
Nov. 17, 2020—by Emma Mattson When Harrison Thomas registered as a junior for a Vanderbilt pre-med mentoring program, he expected to learn about writing a strong personal statement. He expected to practice his interviewing skills. He expected to receive good advice through the whole pre-med process. What he didn’t expect was that two years later he would...
The Best of Both Worlds: How MSTPs Balance Life in Two Advising College Communities
Sep. 28, 2020—by Emma Mattson From Big-Little Reveal to College Cup, the four med school colleges get a lot of well-deserved publicity. But less attention gets paid to an equally crucial support system for our MD PhD students: the MSTP colleges. Maybe you’re an M2 student wondering if the transition to research will be terribly lonely. Maybe...
A Centennial Tribute: VUSM Grad Gordon Petty, MD (‘50) turns 100
Sep. 19, 2020—by Emma Mattson Gordon Petty, born September 19, 1920, celebrates his hundredth birthday this Saturday, September 19. His century of life is marked by medical excellence, exemplary service to his community, and unforgettable influence on all who meet him. Dr. Petty has lived through the Great Depression, a world war, the terms of 17 American...